SOME OUGHTS AND OUGHT-NOTS ON CRIMINALIZATION IN IRANIAN CRIMINAL LAW

Undoubtedly, criminalization is one of most complex and difficult legislative areas, which needs to be based on criminal-law principles.  Criminalization involves substantive criteria such as limited sphere, and proportionality between crime and punishment, as well as formal criteria such as explicitness and transparency, If these criteria are not met, then goals behind criminalization will be not achieved and criminal law will be damaged, and most importantly, a over-criminalization will be formed. Having examined some substantive and formal oughts and ought-nots in the light of existing criminal law, this paper concludes that criminalization in Iranian criminal law, especially in sphere of concretionary crimes, is not substantively and formally compatible with its underlying principles